IT Security vs IT Compliance: Two peas in a pod

You may have heard Compliance and security used in the same sentence lately. And when you think about it, the two concepts go hand in hand for businesses.

According to Statista, the number of data breaches in 2020 reached 1001 cases and affected over 155.8 million people in the US only. These figures indicate the importance of policies for data protection and business compliance.

However, even though the line between IT compliance and security may seem blurred for many business owners, these two notions are not the same thing. Understanding these differences is crucial to making smart decisions around data protection.

Compliance and security: They say that no two industries can be more different than these, which is quite true. Let’s look at the differences between these two terms and determine which one is more crucial for your business.

What is IT Compliance?

As simple as it may sound, IT Compliance represents a set of regulatory standards imposed by a third-party entity.

Adhering to IT Compliance is a must for any business in the current business environment. With the boom of electronic data exchange and storage in the financial, retail, and healthcare sectors, proper business information management is necessary.

As you know, numerous cyber security rules define what kind of information it is and how it is gathered, stored, protected, accessed, and processed. Those rules are mandatory for all businesses that have more than ten employees. That’s because cyberattacks may lead to severe financial losses for the companies.

Internal Compliance focuses on the policies, regulations, and best practices established by your organization. External Compliance is concerned with the guidelines set by legislative or industry organizations to protect the personal information of customers or end-users.

From a business perspective, data security compliance brings the following benefits:

• It helps businesses avoid penalties and fines. Failing to conform to laws and regulations imposed by a third-party entity may lead an organization to severe penalties and fines.
• It helps to build a positive business reputation. Conforming compliance guidelines ensures that your brand uses sensitive customer information correctly. It all results in a significantly higher degree of customer trust in your business.
• It improves data management in your company. By following compliance standards, companies gain the chance to reorganize their data management processes, audit the existing data systems, and get rid of information and files that, with time, have become irrelevant or of no value for their business.

Yet, achieving Compliance may be a daunting task for an organization. Here are several challenges the businesses may face:

• Maintaining multiple compliance regulations may cause conflicts among the regulations themselves and the company’s policies and regulations.
• International presence forces the company to comply with the regulations of each country in which it operates.
• The business may lack financial and human resources to maintain IT security compliance.

Who’s responsible for IT Compliance?

As a rule, a typical compliance department includes:

Chief Compliance Officer (CCO):

This role is responsible for the implementation and implementation of IT compliance programs and managing all activities to ensure compliance with company policy. The CCO reports to the enterprise executives about all updates and risks concerning IT Compliance.

The compliance department Compliance officers are in charge of creating and implementing compliance programs, managing risks, tracking problems, coordinating employee training, and scheduling regular reviews with the appropriate officials.

The Chief Technology Officer is responsible for all aspects of its technology framework, including its Compliance and security.

IT Compliance & GRC

Compliance is not, by itself, protection or defence against cyberattacks. It’s only one of the levels of the more significant strategy implied to help organizations manage risks, maintain internal governance, and follow the regulations. This strategy is summed up under the acronym GRC, which stands for:

• Governance – aimed at ensuring that the organization is directed and controlled per its business goals;
• Risk – geared towards identification, assessment, and addressing any possible hazards which can harm the organization’s activities;
• Compliance – ensuring that an organization is following proper legal and regulatory guidelines.

Еxamples

The laws and regulations a company must comply with generally depend on the country, industry, and other factors. In most cases, they may be subdivided into:

• Generally, applicable guidelines apply to all businesses that operate in a specific jurisdiction, irrespective of the companies' industry.
• Sector-specific regulations apply to businesses belonging to a specific industry.

Some of the most common IT security compliance standards include:

• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is aimed at safeguarding the privacy and safety of customer information in the European Union;
• CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) controls how businesses collect and use the personal information of California residents;
• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) represents an IT compliance standard regulating how medical organizations should safeguard patients’ sensitive information;
• SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) is geared towards regulating the transparency and disclosure of financial data;
• PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) is a set of regulations created by credit card companies to protect customers’ credit card information;
• ISO 27000 Family is a set of standards for managing information safety created by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The standards cover the issues connected to network security, risk management storage, cybersecurity, etc.

What is IT Security?

Information and data security is a set of procedures designed to protect business data from unauthorized use or access, whether by people or automated processes.

With the implementation of security compliance measures, businesses attain a range of benefits, such as:

Increased productivity The expansion of information technologies in all sectors of activity increases the risk of violating security regulations. Efficient information protection measures accompanied by security training for employees allow staff to ensure that team works with data in the right way.

Increased customer trust Information technology security provides an essential safeguard of customer data. If your business proves to be reliable in this regard, then more people are likely to use your services.

Guardrails against financial losses Business reputation and sales aren’t the only thing damaged in a data breach. Some of the highest costs are fines, restitution, and lost profits.

As with any other process, IT security implementation will not be easily accomplished by companies that lack trained staff, have a limited budget and lack appropriate tools to automate controls and audit their effectiveness.

Who’s Responsible for IT Security?

Everyone is familiar with data breaches that occur due to hackers infiltrating a computer network. Nevertheless, research by Stanford University challenges a common belief that most security risks lie in attacks from hackers, which turns out to be incorrect.

To implement the best information protection practices maintain a consistent level of risk awareness and security training among your employees, a team of information security professionals is required in-house.

As a rule, the IT security team consists of:

• Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) 's primary responsibilities are creating and maintaining the organization’s security architecture, reporting to executives about the security status, real-time threats or issues, and coordinating the IT security department.
• The primary role of the IT security department is to keep systems and networks secure. Its primary function involves identifying, analysing, and preventing risks and security threats. For this purpose, the department performs regular audits and ensures that the staff receives regular security training.

Information Security vs Cybersecurity: What’s the Difference?

IT security and cyber security are two concepts that most people regularly use interchangeably. However, upon closer inspection, it is evident that they differ in some ways.

It is essential to ensure that your data and information systems are secure and safeguarded against unauthorized access. This way, confidential and sensitive information is protected, and its entrance is regulated.

Cyber security has become the most crucial part of business operations. Organizations need to implement preventive technologies to secure their electronic data, networks, and servers against malware, phishing, and other cyberattacks to comply with security standards.

There is a difference between the two terms. In essence, cyber security is a subset of IT security, a collection of all the information in use by the organization. IT security encompasses cybersecurity and all relevant data from all business operations.

What IT Security Areas to Focus On

Quality information security compliance strategy aspires to control and protect four main areas related to data storage and transfer: users, data, application, and network. Let’s take a look at each of them.

User-level security User-level security aims to ensure that only users aware of the enterprise’s information protection policies have access to corporate data.

Data security is the creation and maintenance of digital systems that keep sensitive information safe. This is usually accomplished by monitoring and controlling how data is used internally (employees) and externally (business partners, customers).

Application security is an internal measure aimed at safeguarding software applications from intrusions.

Network security is an essential element that allows companies to protect their valuable assets. Network security precautions will minimize the risks of threats to the network.

Examples

Information security compliance measures, also known as information security management systems, embrace techniques to safeguard data, networks, and applications from malicious attacks. Among the best security practices identified by experts are:

Data encryption: Data encryption refers to a security measure that allows you to encrypt data stored on the servers and transmitted over the Internet in a way that only authorized personnel can decode it.

Firewall implementation: Firewalls are installed at your company’s network entrance to monitor and filter incoming and outgoing traffic on your network. By examining data packets based on previously set security rules, firewalls protect your data from viruses, malware, and hackers.

Regular backups: A backup strategy is the most powerful way to protect your information. By performing a backup, you can count on duplicated files and data if there’s a need to restore data.

Multi-factor authentication: (MFA) The practice of setting up multi-factor authentication does a great job of protecting data from unauthorized access by requiring a user to pass through multiple verification steps to gain access to the information stored in the application, device, or online account.

IT Security vs IT Compliance: Similarities and Differences

Even though IT security and Compliance can overlap, several critical similarities between the two. For instance, both address security standards and risk management and business continuity and disaster recovery.

Reducing risks Complying with IT security practices and regulations can help you minimize the probability of data breaches, leaks, and losses that will preserve your reputation and reduce the likelihood of severe penalties and fines.

Building customer trust Being compliant with industry guidelines reflects the professionalism of an organization. More importantly, it also ensures that the organization doesn’t end up paying millions of dollars in fines.

Implementing compliance standards and security measures is essential as it reduces the risks of cyberattacks. In addition, it demonstrates to your customers that your company cares about their data privacy. It builds trust and confidence in your brand in the eyes of your clients.

In many cases, both security and compliance strategies exist separately. A compliant company from a security standpoint might not be protected from malicious actors and vice versa.

The key differences between IT Compliance and  IT security are:

Enforcement difference

External organizations impose standards. You must meet at least a minimum standard to pass the compliance audit.

Compliance is more about paperwork and bureaucracy than about security. IT security, on the other hand, is about protecting an organization’s most strategic asset (the data), protecting against external intruders (cyberattacks), and protecting against internal threats (disgruntled employees).

Different types of losses

Failure to adhere to regulatory standards may result in fines, penalties, and sanctions. Failing to implement adequate security measures may result in financial and data losses.

Procedural difference

With IT Compliance, you are meeting the minimum compliance with regulations. A company is only required to implement IT security once it's reached the minimum standard of IT Compliance.

Conclusion

Achieving Compliance and security is a tough challenge. However, both processes can be completed with the proper measures in place, such as solid governance frameworks and relevant policies.

Ready to take your organization’s IT security to the next level? Noetic experts are focused on helping organizations protect their data and meet information security requirements. Contact us for a free consultation.